Diwali Baking #1

Hello my friends!
After an insane week of exams and hair pulling and eye gouging (no, this is not female wrestling), I am back to bake weekly after a brilliant night of Footloose-ing with mates (ILY Willard, Rusty’s blue prom dress!)

Like in my procrastination post before this one (oops!), I was saying how many things are fast approaching (and not just baking wise)

One of these is DIWALI! Indian festival of colours, this is the time when our house is the lightest on our street 😀

For Diwali is Indian equivalent to Christmas I’d say so we go around eating rich Indian curries (mutter paneer and stuffed cheese naan – YUM) and giving out presents – This year I was commissioned to bake for a couple of families specifically by my dear mother – DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?

THAT MEANS:

I bake full recipes instead of quarters and eighths!

I bake during the night because it is a lot of work getting out cakes and truffles all day long!

I decorate the desserts!

I see big fat smiles (touchwood so far…)

My first recipe was a German Chocolate Cake. It is for my brilliant godparents. Dam do they deserve this cake which I am so happy to give to them!!!

So yesterday night, I got home from fun to my kitchen for excess fun and baked the chocolate cake part. Batter was brilliant, perfect size cake BUT…
Disaster Strikes! I used SRF and the cake sunk in the middle! – Next time have more baking powder as an extra precaution and let cool in oven rather than hot to cold!

Not to worry, I used the sunken side as my base when I split the cake so no one would ever know (filling, steady cake structure) – Yeah, I’m good but shhhhh…. This also gave me the most gorgeous top 🙂

This morning was hustle and bustle – deadline of 4pm. So I made the filling (which is so divine I ate so much from my wooden mixing spoon!!!), split the cake, filled, topped the cake AND THEN…

THE TOPPING – The most easy to work with chocolate sauce topped with pecans around the border – oh my god…

Too bad I don’t get to eat this cake but while cutting I ate crumbs, I already mentioned my incident with the filling and I enjoyed licking my saucepan clean of chocolate sauce!
You can see where I am coming from no? Does this cake not look divine? It is one of my most proudest creations to date! YAY for baking improvement! And the best part is, this recipe from Baker’s Royale is so simple – EVERYONE SHOULD MUST TRY IT!

What I Did Different:

Made it in a 20cm springform tin instead of as minis – baking time lessened to approximately 35-40 minutes due to the lack of height

Split the cake in 2 (but next time 3 would be better for more layering)

Ignored the alcoholic syrup (I’m a good girl :P) – You can substitute rum essence if desired I suppose

Didn’t toast my pecans – Maybe it gives an Earthiness but I got lazy…

Didn’t use toasted coconut – I used desiccated sweetened coconut + the same amount of sugar in the filling and it was absolutely divine (I should know…)

In the filling, I used 2/3 cup caster sugar and 1/3 cup white sugar (purely because I ran out of caster sugar)

That just about does it now go – don’t these picture tell you to run to your kitchen already?

You really need to check deeply into your family tree-after seeing this I would definitely think you have some German background! German chocolate is one of my favs and you definitely did it justice. Stunning presentation!
Glad you pulled this one out from your archives!

This looks amazing and deceptively simple. We had something similar a couple of months back at a friends place ( I think it was almond and orange from Stephanie Alexander’s book) and she poured the melted chocolate just before serving. Does that make a difference?

Aunty it is not deceptively simple it IS simple 😀
That is what I love most about this cake!

Almond and orange sounds like a divine combination – this one has a filling of coconut cream, thickened cream, coconut, eggs, butter and crushed pecans

Pouring melted chocolate on top just before serving simply means when serving, the cake will be more gooey and drippy – which can be a good thing – the same results can be obtained by slightly warming the cake up as well – it really depends on you but there is no major difference to note 🙂